Exec Says Joe Camel Aimed at Adults
A top R.J. Reynolds Tobacco executive Thursday defended the company’s advertising policies, testifying during the U.S. racketeering trial against cigarette makers that R.J. Reynolds did not aim its popular Camel brand products at children or teenagers.
Lynn Beasley, president and chief operating officer for the main unit of Reynolds American Inc., helped launch Joe Camel, the cartoon figure known for his cool persona and dark sunglasses that later drew the ire of regulators.
She said the company marketed only to adult smokers.
“The policy since I’ve been at the company is that we do not want youth to smoke,” testified Beasley, who joined R.J. Reynolds in 1982 as a marketing assistant.
The Joe Camel character was used to advertise Camel cigarettes during the late 1980s and most of the 1990s.
The Federal Trade Commission charged R.J. Reynolds with unfair advertising practices in 1997, saying Joe Camel ads targeted youth. R.J. Reynolds agreed to halt the ads later that year.
Beasley was the latest of several tobacco executives who have taken the witness stand to address government charges that they promoted cigarettes to underage smokers.
The racketeering lawsuit, filed by the administration of President Clinton in 1999, accuses R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco firms of deliberately misleading the public about the risks of smoking in a conspiracy going back to the 1950s.
Also targeted in the lawsuit are Altria and its Philip Morris USA unit; Loews Corp.’s Lorillard Tobacco unit, which has a tracking stock, Carolina Group; Vector Group’s Liggett Group; and British American Tobacco unit British American Tobacco Investments Ltd.
Beasley came up with the idea to revamp an older illustrated Camel brand poster.
R.J. Reynolds wanted a new image that “was contemporary to change the perception of Camel as an old brand. Joe Camel fit that goal completely,” Beasley said in written testimony. She added that focused consumer groups to evaluate the ads were limited to smokers older than 18.
A U.S. government survey released Thursday showed 22.3% of high school students and 8.1% of middle school students said they smoked cigarettes in 2004.
Tobacco product use in youth has not dropped significantly since 2002, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey.
In U.S. District Court in Washington, Justice Department lawyer Ken Sealls displayed full-page ads from Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and other magazines, used during and after the Joe Camel campaign. Sealls tried to show that the ads had a youthful bent.
One, from a 2005 Rolling Stone issue, showed a younger-looking woman with a Camel cigarette. “You see that her left eyebrow is pierced?” Sealls asked.
“I do,” Beasley said.
But she said the company placed ads only in magazines with at least 85% adult readership and that the publications Sealls showed met that test.
